Google allowing employees to hold some meetings outdoors:
Google has begun holding in-person meetings outdoors on company campuses as it prepares for employees to return to offices next year, according to CNBC.
The company said it is trialing socially-distanced meeting formats called “onsite off-sites” as it tries to find ways to hold more employee collaboration amid the pandemic, and to bring aboard new hires.
Google was the first major tech company to ask employees to stay home when the pandemic started, and is now experimenting with ways to gather people on campuses slowly and safely. It gave workers the option to work from home until summer of 2021.
In September, after finding that most employees wanted to return in a part-time capacity, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company would try ‘hybrid’ work-from-home models, including rearranging office settings.
Image: Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, California by David Nagle, Wikimedia Commons.
Bill Gates predicts the pandemic will change the world in 7 dramatic ways:
Five years ago Bill Gates delivered a TED Talk on the likelihood of a future global pandemic, and best practice strategies to prepare for it. Thanks to that talk he is now regarded as one of the most prophetic voices on the threat of new diseases.
The Microsoft founder-turned-philanthropist has launched a new podcast with actor Rashida Jones to discuss “pressing problems” – their first episode covering a vision of life after Covid-19.
In a discussion with infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci, Gates described his top seven predictions:
Remote meetings will be normalised.
Software will have improved dramatically.
Companies may share an office on rotation.
We’ll choose to live in different places.
You’ll socialise less at work, and more in your own community.
Things won’t go totally back to normal for a long time.
The Street Furniture Australia factory, in Regents Park, Western Sydney, is both a manufacturing hub and R&D studio for our Australian-designed and made street furniture products. We run fun and informative group events for customers throughout the year, to share how products are designed, tested and built, and the latest products and projects. Director of Tract Julie Lee said: “It was a great opportunity for our team to look behind the scenes and understand the innovation, research and climate positive outcomes Street Furniture Australia is focusing on. Thank you for having us!” Place Design Group Associate, Liam Isaksen, said: “The factory tour is a fun experience to learn about the design and manufacturing process of public furniture we use in landscape architecture design. Seeing the work behind the scenes and …
Did you catch these most-read case studies, furnishing tips, new product announcements and special industry events in your StreetChat updates in 2023? Each month our StreetChat enewsletter publishes new projects, products and trends from the public domain; subscribe to receive it in your inbox. 10. Which design firm can see Longhorn Cattle from their office window? 2 countries. 9 cities. 300 landscape architects. Street Furniture Australia and USA partner Spruce & Gander visited offices in Australia and Texas. There were key similarities and some notable standouts. 9. Jazz at The Mint: Product and Book Launch Sydney landscape architects gathered at the iconic Mint Courtyard to launch a design book by our founding directors Darrel Conybeare and Bill Morrison, and expansions to the Linea collection. 8. 2023 Good Cause Giveaway goes to …
Street Furniture Australia has designed and built prototype charging stands as part of a Transport for NSW program to deliver free phone chargers at 15 Sydney train stations. Developed by Street Furniture Australia’s inhouse industrial designers in collaboration with Transport for NSW, the prototypes offer wireless, USB-A and USB-C charging, and can power 7 devices at once. They were built at the Street Furniture Australia factory in Western Sydney. Two Power Spots are now installed at Liverpool and Campbelltown stations. The $1 million Power Spots Project rollout to 15 transport hubs including Bankstown, Hurstville, Lidcombe, Penrith, Wynyard, Central, Town Hall and Bondi Junction will be completed by late 2024. NSW Transport Minister Jo Haylen said the Power Spots provide peace of mind: “In the modern world, our phones are our …
Seoul is Planning ‘Wind Path Forests’ to Direct Fresh Air to the CBD: Seoul has announced plans to bring a concept called ‘wind path forests’ to life, to direct clean air into the city, absorb particles and lessen the urban heat island effect. Trees will be placed close together along rivers and roads to create wind paths so clean and cool air generated at night from Gwanaksan Mountain and Bukhansan Mountain can flow into the centre of Seoul. Three kinds of forests will direct and purify air, according to Cities Today. Wind-generating forests, including species such as pine trees and maple trees, will be cultivated so that they direct the fresh air from the forest to flow towards the city. Connecting forests will feature air-purifying plants, such as wild cherry …
Norman Foster on the Pandemic Impact: Though everything currently seems different, in the long term rather than changing anything, Covid-19 will accelerate and magnify trends already in place, the well-known British architect writes for the Guardian. Throughout history the crises of the day have hastened the arrival of the day’s solutions – fireproof buildings, sewage systems, green parks, the automobile, he writes. We should not expect our future to be two-metre distancing – “The last major pandemic of 1918-20 created deserted city centres, face masks, lockdowns and quarantines. But it also heralded the social and cultural revolution of the 1920s with newly built gathering spaces: department stores, cinemas and stadiums. “What might be the equivalent hallmarks of our coming age, after Covid-19?” See the article, The Pandemic will Accelerate the …
Designing streets for kids: Released in August by the Global Designing Cities Initiative, “Designing Streets for Kids,” offers strategies and solutions to redesign urban streets and public spaces by focusing on the needs of kids and caregivers, with the goal of making streets beautiful, fun – and safe. Motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for young people ages 5-29 globally, and traffic congestion and vehicles contribute to high levels of air pollution, which is responsible for the death of 127,000 children under the age of five each year, the guide’s authors said. Many of these deaths, they said, can be dramatically reduced through kid-friendly street design. Read the Forbes article, How to Make Streets Kid-Friendly by Tanya Mohn. Image: A street in Fortaleza, Brazil, designed according to ‘Designing Streets …
